Nearly a third of the ballots cast in the presidential election last fall were submitted by mail, despite long-standing efforts from President Trump and other Republicans to discourage the controversial voting method, new research found.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) released a report this week that found while mail-in ballots didn’t hit the record levels seen during the height of the pandemic four years earlier (at 43 percent), the percentage of voters who cast ballots by mail last fall (30.3 percent) remained well above prepandemic levels.
Most voters in the 2024 general election cast their ballots in person, with 37.4 percent on Election Day and 35.2 percent through in-person early voting opportunities, the report found. However, more than 48 million mail-in votes were cast and counted in the 2024 presidential election, in addition to ballots sent in by members of the military and other overseas voters.
“State policies on the availability of mail voting have evolved rapidly over the past few election cycles,” the EAC’s analysts wrote of the findings.
Eight states and Washington, D.C., have adopted “all” or “mostly” mail elections, where ballots are sent to registered voters and can be returned via secure drop boxes or the U.S. Postal Service, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Additional states allow mail-in elections in some jurisdictions.
The growing popularity of voting by mail also comes as Trump has targeted the ballot-casting method as a potential avenue for voter fraud. The president signed an executive order in March that would require all states and territories to count mail-in ballots on or before Election Day, as part of a broader election system overhaul that Trump backed after years of making unfounded claims about widespread voter fraud.
“Free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic,” Trump wrote in the order, which a federal judge blocked last month. “The right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution, is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election.”
Trump’s executive order, rather than ending early voting, sought to rein in delays in finalizing vote tallies in some states, including California, which is the country’s most populous state and has an all-mail voting system. California allows mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted up to seven days after polls close.
Trump cited other countries that have more restrictions on when ballots can be counted, including those submitted by mail.
“While countries like Denmark and Sweden sensibly limit mail-in voting to those unable to vote in person and do not count late-arriving votes regardless of the date of postmark, many American elections now feature mass voting by mail, with many officials accepting ballots without postmarks or those received well after Election Day,” he wrote.
The EAC findings are based on surveys of election officials in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
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